Features and Benefits
No study of the Sales Process would be complete without a study of Features and Benefits and more importantly how to link the two together.
“Selling is: matching the benefits of your product or offer, with the needs of your customer by bringing them together in a reasoned and clearly communicated case.”
Firstly, though it is important to define just exactly what features and benefits are, as it is surprising just how many people mix them up.
Features
What is a feature? Salespeople love to talk about the features of their product or offer, especially when they are enthusiastic about it.
A feature is a single characteristic of a product or offer. It explains what is different about a product or offer, compared with different products or services or the same from other suppliers.
Any characteristic could be a feature, including Packaging, Pricing, and Service etc. Features explain why or how a benefit can occur; they are a means to the end – the end is the benefit.
Sadly, features, on their own, are meaningless. Many a slick sales presentation bores the customer to death as they think to themselves “So what”.
Benefits
A benefit on the other hand is “The promise of a future positive result, forecast or event, upon taking certain action”. It is therefore the favourable result of taking that action.
A benefit must always be customer related, whereas features are supplier related.
Benefits can also be unique to the individual person. In business to business selling, a service or product can also confer different benefits to different departments.
This will depend on the hierarchy of customer needs. Benefits can also be emotional as well as logical even in business to business. Never underestimate the feel good factor.
Features support benefits and they are linked to them. There is an art to matching the correct benefit. Benefits differ by customer type.
Firstly, preparation and customer knowledge is required to determine customer needs and therefore relevant benefits. This benefit should then always satisfy a customer’s needs, otherwise it is irrelevant.
This is because customers buy benefits not features. Think back to your last major purchase. Why did you choose that particular product or supplier? Did the seller communicate a benefit, which met one of your needs?
Linking Features to Benefits
The key to linking benefits to features is to answer the questions: “So what!” “What does it do for the customer?” or “Which means that!”
“What does it do for me?” “What does it mean to my business?” If you can still keep saying, “So what!” you haven’t got to a benefit.
As I stated before, it’s worth repeating, customers never buy features, they buy what those features will do for them in terms of benefits.
Benefits also need to be relevant; Your Sales proposals or presentation should always therefore contain a link between the benefits of the proposal / offers and your customer’s needs.
So a benefit must therefore satisfy a customer need. Your skills in questioning and listening will determine how well you can establish your prospect’s needs.
Questioning and listening are therefore the key selling skills you should perfect more than any others, if you wish to become adept at the art of selling.
Matching your offer benefits to your customer’s needs is the most vital element of any proposal. When drafting your proposal or presentation, you should therefore be able to answer these questions:
– “How can I turn the features of my product or offer, into the benefits most relevant to my customer’s needs?”
This is a true Customer orientated approach
When presenting your proposals, practice using the following Link Words, as these naturally link the feature to a benefit:
- Therefore you have
- Which will give you
- So you get
- As a result of which
- That leads to
- Which means that
- Which allows you to
- And in addition
Communicate clearly and concisely and do not speed through, to ensure understanding. Always consider your audience, by checking understanding of the key benefits meeting customers’ needs.
Feature + link words + benefit = matches need
The customer benefit must always satisfy the customer need. If it doesn’t, then the sale could be lost!
The action threshold
When you are in the sales process and trying to help people to buy ie selling, there comes a point, hopefully, when their resistance to buying is less than their desire to buy. This will be unconscious and is a result of all the positives minus negatives. It will also include any limiting beliefs they might have.
Therefore your job, as a sales professional is to lower their resistance whilst at the same time increasing their desire. It would therefore be tempting to give them all of your benefits straight up front. But don’t. Keep your powder dry, save your good stuff until the end.